What is an SCN file please?

[Northerngirl]

Hello again to the Technical Help folk.

I wonder if you'll be able to help me again?

I have a camcorder which I used in my visit to my grandparent's home town in Ireland.  I had successfully copied them from the camera to my computer using the memory stick with the SDHC card 'attached' to it.  Unfortunately my computer was 'as if struck by lightening' and I lost the hard discs, processor, motherboard and games board.  These have all been replaced and I have tried getting back to where I was with editting the video clips.  Some of the video clips are usable but others - and this tends to be every alternate one - will not let me have access to them.  The information for the file tells me that Windows does not recognize it and asks to either look using the internet or using my computer.  I have tried the latter but the computer will not accept my attempts to open the clips. 

The one feature I do note about them is that they are SCN files. 

I don't understand any of this and would like some advice.  I have looked on the internet and a site informs that they may be part of my video editting software - which is called Studio and produced by a company called Pinnacle.  It would be really nice to be able to save these clips as they include my mother and two sisters seeing the church where my grandparents were married for the first time.

Please help.

P.S I'm more than a bit of a technophobe so will need everything explaining please. 

Yours J.A.

[Berlin-Bob]

One explanation is that they are SimCity Scenario files 

but the second, and more likely explanation is

Pinnacle Studio Scene File for videos
"typically saved along with an .AVI file with the same filename."

http://www.fileinfo.net/extension/scn

Maybe the .AVI file got lost ??

Bob

[Northerngirl]

Hi Bob.

The latter is more likely to be correct as the files I use when editing  are 'captured' as AVI files which are audio visual thingymabob files! or so I am informed

J.A.

P.S that is the site I visited and am no wiser nor more knowledgable than I was.

[downside]

Have you re-installed the Studio software?

That seems to be the solution to your problems unless I am missing the obvious.

Windows can't open the filetype .scn because it has not been registered in the Registry.

Contains information about multiple scenes within a single video file; used by Pinnacle Studio to describe scenes and to specify when they begin and end; typically saved along with an .AVI file with the same filename.

Source
http://www.fileinfo.net/extension/scn

[Northerngirl]

Hello Downside.

Yes I have had to reinstall Studio and am actively using it when off line.

Would you please explain about the registry.

J.A.

[downside]

Hi Northerngirl

When you install a program it puts entries in Windows registry so that Windows knows what program to use when you are dealing with certain file types.  If you go into Folder Options in Control Panel and click on the File Types tab and scroll down to SCN you probably will not find a listing for it - hence the reason Windows keeps prompting you to search the Internet for an associated program that can open it.   However if you look at it using My Computer it will probably have a Studio icon next to it.

Basically, you should not open an .scn file as it seems to be an information file and not a video file.  In other words the Studio program uses it when you open the AVI file with the same file name.

[Northerngirl]

Hello again Downside.

Thank you for that bit of information.

I think I am beginning to understand the information a little better now.

I've actually had a look again at some of the images.  Some of the important ones I needed to use seem to have been lost somehow.  Yet some of the ones that seemed to have disappeared have appeared again. I don't understand how this is as the disc with the images on it was not anywhere near my computer when it 'was struck by lightening'.  I say this all hesitantly as it does not seem possible and I may have done something without realising.

I was given the hard disc/drive - which was actually two discs/drives, the processor, mother board and games board by the man who fixed my computer.  He told me at the time of explaining about the computer 'crash' that one disc was not salvagable but the other would be on another computer.  I wonder if I could find some way of accessing these.  Any ideas.

J.A.

 

[downside]

A hard drive can be divided up into partitions and logical drives so that when you view your hard drive using My Computer you can see drives C, D, E, F, G, H etc. 

Some partitions on a hard drive can be hidden and they can contain the recovery files for the operating system, if Windows came pre-installed.

Did your old hard disk have two drives, is that what he meant?

If you want to have a look at your old hard drive then you can buy an empty external hard drive case that plugs into a USB port.  Put your old hard drive in the case and use a data recovery program like Test Disk to see if it can read the hard drive.

http://www.cgsecurity.org/wiki/TestDisk

[Northerngirl]

Hello again Downside.

My 'old' computer just showed one hard disk drive 'C' - though physically there are two hard disks.  The updated computer with the new replacements includes one physical disk as the hard disk drive, also 'C'.  I have now purchased a removable hard disk and that sits on the 'D' drive.  I'll be using this drive in the future for capturing and editing the video footage and this will free up space on the static hard drive. 

What is puzzling me is how I have 'lost' the clips I had been using in my first attempt for this second editing venture as the original clips were saved on a CD which was not in the computer when it crashed.  I have to conclude that I am being incredibly stupid or the 'transfer' to CD from the original 'C' drive was corrupted when I was doing it and I have not noticed as I would have been using the 'source' from the 'C' drive to edit originally.

Thank you for your input though Downside.  The recovery option you mentioned is something that I am vaguely aware of but will prove too expensive - it is costing me a fortune just to get back to using the system I have now.

Anybody out there reading this posting and uses the Studio packages especially Studio 10 I'd appreciate some helllpppp!